Posted: 3/15/2007 6:34:31 PM EDT
| What did you guys think of the 300 from a historical standpoint? I thought it was pretty good for a hollywood production, but could have done a little better. |
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I read Gates of Fire some time back and loved it. I recently studied up on the history of Thermopylae and renewed my amazement at the story. I thought the movie was well done, very entertaining and even moving, but.... I think the story has so much more to offer than that movie delivered. They could have really enriched the plot by making it the focus rather than the battle scenes. The movie got the general history right, but definitely "adapted" it. The wiki article was a good read. |
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From a historical perspective?: Bullshit... What's with the whole 'freedom' theme? I know its popular as an american cultural theme, but it has no relevance to the original event. "freedom", as we know and love it, had damned little to do with anything in that story. These were SPARTANS. Not Athenians. As I understand it Sparta was a pretty grim place to live. Lots of obligations to the city-state. Very miliant, very militaristic culture. Actually, it sounds sort of like cold-war Russia. In any case, I seriously doubt the average Spartan had much in the way of freedom. Its a nice flick. But from a historical perspective its about as realisitc as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Pure fantasy. |
| The movie focused on the spartans, but made virtually no reference to the other nations that were present. The emphasized that theere were only 300 vs 1 million, but in reality there were nearly 6,000 vs. 250,000. Still not great odds, but that would not probably sell tickets... |
I totally agree. I was wondering why freedom was brought up so much. I also found it interesting that one of the Spartans referred to the Athenians as boy lovers when the Spartan practice of pederasty was thought a little weird even by Greek standards at the time. |
There's freedom and there's freedom. They did not have freedom by our standards, or even by the standards of many of their neighboring Greeks, but they were still fighting to maintain "freedom" from Persian rule. Or that's what I told myself so that I could continue enjoying the movie... |
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I watched it the other night, and found it to be a pretty good flick--strange for Hollyweird to put out a movie with innuendos of standing strong against foreign aggressors (especially old Iran), when all they seem fit to do is run when things get tough. From an historical standpoint, it was Hollywood, after all. Last I heard, there weren't monsters trolling around, and a giant Persian king. The History Channel has show about the real 300. Check you local listings. |